This invention relates to the field of interactive food packaging. In particular, this invention relates to packaging associated with food, particularly confectionary and ice cream-type treats, wherein a device associated with the packaging, either alone or optionally with a reader interact-able with the device associated with the packaging, provides when activated a light, text, sound, or movement output that is detectable by a consumer.
Collectible items, such as toys, cards, and the like, have often been used to enhance consumer identification with and preference for a consumer product. Food manufacturers and retailers have responded to this popularity by introducing innovations such as more complex toys, holographic logos on cards, and with toys tied to other advertising venues, for example movie action figures. Cards have typically been passive. Toys are interactive but typically are not related with the products they promote.
Efforts have been made to improve the level of interaction between a consumer and a card. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,480,156 and 5,433,035 disclose talking trading cards which are activated by either squeezing the card or touching a front surface of the card. Children""s books have become available which contain integral electronic devices capable of producing sounds that had been stored in a digital memory within the device during the manufacturing process, either as digitally recorded or synthesized sound. Examples of such books are the SIGHT-N-SOUND books published by Western Publishing and widely available in toy stores and at other merchandisers in the United States and elsewhere. In these books, an electronic device is attached to the back cover. This device allows the reader to press any one of several touch button switch areas located on the device, which in turn results in the production of a particular prestored sound, such as that of a human voice, an animal sound, musical instrument sounds and the like. When the child reads the book or has the book read to him or her, graphics or colored indications within the text direct the reader to press similarly identified or colored touch buttons on the device; thereby to reproduce an appropriate, prestored sound to enliven and otherwise enhance the process of reading the book. In these toys, the entire interactive sound-generating system is self-contained within the toy.
Innovision-Group has been manufacturing first toys that interact with another reader-toy, where the reader toy conveys a message based on machine-readable information contained on the first toys.
During the last several years, various child-oriented products have been developed which incorporate electronic circuitry for providing audible sounds or messages. Typically, these prior art sound producing toys are in the form of puzzles, display boards, or panels which enable certain sounds to be made when either a puzzle piece or a movable member is positioned to activate the system to produce the particular sound or message. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,330,380 is directed to an audible message/information delivery system. In particular, the patent discloses a system comprising a speaker, processing means, an activating switch, a microprocessor, and an input zone for reading coded information disposed on a toy selected from the group consisting of toy vehicles, dolls, stuffed animals, airplanes and action figures. When a user places a toy bearing a coded message on the input zone of the system, the system will play back an audible message associated with that toy.
In addition, numerous toy dolls have been manufactured and sold over the last several years which incorporate circuitry for enabling the doll to enunciate messages, whenever activated. Such dolls have also been constructed with removable or replaceable sound producing chips in order to increase the vocabulary which the doll is capable of providing. U.S. Pat. No. 4,840,602 to Rose describes a talking doll responsive to an external signal, in which the doll has a vocabulary stored in digital data in a memory which may be accessed to cause a speech synthesizer in the doll to simulate speech. U.S. Pat. No. 5,021,878 to Lang describes an animated character system with real-time control. U.S. Pat. No. 5,142,803 to Lang describes an animated character system with real-time control.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,914,748 discloses a novelty flashlight which illuminates a piece of candy when the end user depresses a button on a handle of the device.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,062,936 describes a toy that includes a first electrode and a second electrode that are coupled to an electrical circuit. The first electrode is also coupled to an consumable substance. The circuit is closed when an end user becomes electrically coupled to the first electrode and the consumble substance. Closing the circuit may activate one or more actuators, sound devices, etc. of the toy.
Food packaging material are used to contain a wide variety of information regarding contents, expiration date of goods, ingredients of contents, safety, use of goods and the like is generally printed on labels which are easily read visually.
Food packaging material are typically sterile, and any associated items are advantageously small, light, and fit for contact with food. The traditional talking card or toy, with a battery, a microprocessor or sound chip, and a speaker of sorts, is therefore undesirable for use on food packaging.
Further, if a toy or card were to be associated with various food products, it must be able to withstand temperature extremes. For ice cream products and the like, temperatures of xe2x88x9240xc2x0 C. is common in hardening, and xe2x88x9225xc2x0 C. is common in storage. The toy or card must be able to withstand these temperature extremes and still be operable after being exposed to these temperatures. This invention described below provides an interactive toy associated with a food product.
The invention provides a food product for delivering an audible, visual and/or tactile message to a consumer of the food product. The food product contains a food packaging component; a tag having encoded information associated with the food packaging component; and a separate reader for translating the encoded information into an audible, visual and/or tactile message. This message may be obtained before, during or after consuming the food product.
The consumer may obtain the message from the encoded information of the tag by activating the reader to the tag. The reader includes a sensory output mechanism providing one or more of light, displayed text, sound, or movement when the reader is activated to read the encoded information. The light, displayed text, sound, or movement may include information which the consumer then uses to play a game, for example, a URL or number which when the appropriate internet site is accessed allows the consumer to play a game, receive a message, enter a contest, or the like. In one embodiment, information is directly communicable from the reader to a personal computer using any protocol known to those of skill in the art.
In an embodiment wherein at least part of the sensory output is audible, the sensory output mechanism comprises a sound chip that includes a memory for storing a prerecorded message associated with the encoded information; a sound generating unit for audible play-back of the prerecorded message associated with the encoded information; and a mechanism for retrieving from the non-volatile memory the prerecorded message associated with the encoded information.
In an embodiment wherein at least part of the sensory output is visible text, the sensory output mechanism comprises a chip that includes a memory for storing a prerecorded message associated with the encoded information; a liquid crystal display including a controller for displaying the prerecorded message associated with the encoded information; and a mechanism for retrieving from the non-volatile memory the prerecorded message associated with the encoded information.
The reader in one embodiment includes at least one electro-optical sensor capable of reading encoded information on the tag by one or more of visible, ultraviolet and infrared light, or radio wave or microwaves or any other usable portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, by conductivity, or by magnetic field. In a preferred embodiment, the machine-readable information in that tag is contained in a semiconductor chip, and the chip is read by the reader via electromagnetic radiation, i.e., radio or microwave radiation, received by an antenna in the reader. In one embodiment, the machine readable information in the tag is contained in a small semiconductor chip with a small chip-antenna, wherein the chip antenna may include a portion for obtaining power from the reader via moving magnetic fields or the like and another portion of the chip-antenna may include a portion for transmitting the encoded information, and the reader includes a reader-antenna which transmits magnetic fields to the chip and which receives electro-magnetic radiation containing the encoded information.
In another embodiment, the reader comprises a plurality of electro-optical sensors and further includes a housing for supporting the reader.
In one embodiment the housing is advantageously configured as a toy. In a second embodiment the housing is advantageously configured as a point-of-sale marketing tool.
In another embodiment, the reader reads encoded information on the tag by one or more of magnetic switches. In such a case the tag is at least partially magnetized. The reader may include a plurality of magnetic and/or mechanical switches, and wherein the housing comprises at least one slot adapted to receive at least a portion of the food packaging component.
The tag is affixed to the food packaging component and advantageously releases no toxic compounds which may cause injury if ingested.
In some embodiments of the invention, the tag does not contain metal of a quantity sufficient to set off a metal detector.
In some embodiments, the tag is embedded in a stick which may be wood or molded plastic. The stick may be enclosed in the food package component, or attached to the food package component, or attached to the food product.
The food product may contain a plurality of tags and a plurality of different food packaging components, wherein at least two different tags are contained, such that a tag is associated with each different food packaging component, that the reader provides at least two different messages in response to the tags in the food product.
The food packaging component may be a wrapper wherein the tag is disposed upon or affixed to the wrapper, and/or a box for containing a plurality of food products wherein an additional tag is associated with the box. Where the food is in the form of an ice cream product having a stick or wrapper or both, the tag may be associated with either the stick, the wrapper or both.